The washerwomen at Beni Ounif

Description of the artwork

Marie-Aimée Lucas-Robiquet's Orientalist work spans the period between 1891 and 1909. Living in Constantine, Algeria, with her husband, an officer in the French colonial army, she was able to practise her art freely and draw inspiration from scenes of everyday life, which would bring her fame. From 1892, the year of her first Orientalist submission to the Salon, the critic Olivier Merson considered her one of the best Orientalist painters of her time. Dated 1909, our painting is set in Beni Ounif, a little-visited town in southern Oran where the artist was staying at the time and from which she brought back numerous paintings, enabling her to present an Interior in Beni Ounif at the Salon de la Société des Artistes Français in 1910. Our painting depicts an intimate scene of local life, rendered with the artist's powerful and bold technique. With thick, lively brushstrokes, Lucas-Robiquet emphasises the overwhelming bright light that strikes the rock on which the young children are spreading out the laundry to dry. The shadows formed by a multitude of brushstrokes take on blue, violet or mauve hues. The artist treats the intimacy of everyday scenes with a feminine eye and stands out for the closeness she manages to establish with her models. There is a truth and humanity in her painting that is rarely achieved in Orientalist painting.